From the beginning, it’s been clear to me that the present debate concerning health care isn’t really about health care. Rather, it’s about control. Once our “progressive” friends get their hands on our medical care they can then control every aspect of our existence. This strikes at the heart of self-government: that the government – in the form of unelected and unaccountable administrators – will intrude itself into the most intimate aspects of our lives and preempt our own decisions.
Faneuil Hall, Boston
On the way to dinner, we also stopped at Faneuil Hall and went upstairs to the meeting room to take the tour and hear the National Park Service presentation on the building’s history. The hall – known as the “Cradle of Liberty” – was the scene of many of the early debates about British impositions prior to the Revolution. Many of the Revolution’s most famous characters – including Paul Revere, John Adams, John Hancock and Sam Adams – debated in the hall.
Faneuil Hall Meeting Room
I rather doubt that our ancestors would recognize the debate we’re having today over government control of health care. It would be entirely alien to them. I suspect their sentiments would be those of Levi Preston, a member of the Danvers, Massachusetts, militia who answered the call to march on Lexington and Concord and fire the “shot heard ’round the world”.
Many years after the Revolution, someone asked Preston why he had marched that night. Was it the Stamp Act? The tea tax? “Intolerable oppressions”? No, none of that. “Young man,” Preston said, “what we meant in going for those red-coats was this: We had always governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”
And that is the essence of the Revolution. Think about it as the health care debate goes on.
Because it’s not about health care.
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